Swerb just hired me on to write a weekly column for him, and suggested I pimp it on the boards. So since it is basketball season, I posted here.

The column will be a reader-driven Q&A, where you email me questions and I answer them the best I can. I will answer questions on any and all topics: Cleveland sports as the root (since that is what this site is all about), but also non-Cleveland sports topics, pop culture, health and fitness, food and wine, relationships, career advice... you name it, I'll try to tackle it. You can ask me for advice, my informed opinion, or whatever lies in between.

I won't promise or pretend to be more knowledgeable about any given topic than the experts that already write for TCF. What I do promise is that I will be opinionated, likely controversial, and I definitely will not simply rejaculate conventional wisdom onto your screen. I also promise to make up new words, like rejaculate, in the event English fails to provide me a suitable proper word.

Note that neither I nor Swerb nor any of the sponsors of TCF will be responsible in any way for you screwing up your life should you act upon my advice. Caveat emptor and all that crap.

So who the hell am I? I'm just some derelict Swerb found on the blogosphere, having published material on at least three different sites. He made me an offer I couldn't refuse, and now I'm here.

So shoot me questions on my personal email - lars.hancock@yahoo.com - and I'll answer them as best I can, whatever that means. And I'll try to provide a little entertainment in the process.

If you hang out here very often (and you should) you'll soon come to realize that I'm by far the smartest person here as well as the local IT expert. I'm very well respected and everyone likes me, especially e0y2e3 (who is a bit of a douche, but I don't tell him that so he won't yell at me.)

Peeker is bald and a guy named CDT will come around and make very little sense. However, if he's been drinking he immediately becomes the best poster in the history of the interwebs.

He has pet tarantulas.

FUDU is also bald but for some reason no one seems to make it an issue like they do with Peeker, who again, is extremely bald.

Fire Marshall Bill is a real guy. It's true. I've met him.

There is a wide assortment of colorful characters here, the least of which is SoulDawg.

If you hang out here very often (and you should) you'll soon come to realize that I'm by far the smartest person here as well as the local IT expert. I'm very well respected and everyone likes me, especially e0y2e3 (who is a bit of a douche, but I don't tell him that so he won't yell at me.)

Peeker is bald and a guy named CDT will come around and make very little sense. However, if he's been drinking he immediately becomes the best poster in the history of the interwebs.

He has pet tarantulas.

FUDU is also bald but for some reason no one seems to make it an issue like they do with Peeker, who again, is extremely bald.

Fire Marshall Bill is a real guy. It's true. I've met him.

There is a wide assortment of colorful characters here, the least of which is SoulDawg.

Welcome aboard.

Rejaculate is a fantastic word.

Thanks for the navigation help. Being you were the first to reply, I'll assume all of this is 100% true.

CDT has tarantulas? Cool. I had a tarantula in college. I thought it died, when it was only molting, and played lacrosse with it's corpse (which made it actually dead). I'm like the Casey Anthony of small pets. I fear for my children at times - thankfully they don't molt.

e0y2e3 wrote:Feh, you have a Yahoo email, 1998 called and asked for you back.

While 1998 was on the line, did it ask for the "This year called and they want their X back" joke? Because it should have.

And you should have picked up the call waiting. That was 2009 when Yahoo started transitioning to more of a rich content provider instead of the social media interconnect Google tries to be. Yahoo has some excellent writers, not the least of which is Charles Robinson, who singlehandedly brought down USC, Ohio State, and Miami with his reporting. And they have a video segment where Fabio Viviani does a weekly cooking segment - who can't get enough of that crazy fuck? Yahoo has done a fantastic job of creating micro-sites within it to cater to various demographics as well, even altering the look and feel. They could have been crushed by Google - and almost were - but the way they reinvented themselves is a good case study in business evolution and survival.

Having my mail there just makes email part of their overall content delivery portal.

Cerebral_DownTime wrote:I could have done without the gunfire. I'm now deaf in my left ear.

I never understood the need to celebrate things by firing guns. Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy going to the range and discharging clips full of ammunition as a healthy outlet for rage, and to prepare for the inevitable collapse of society, you know, just in case. But hey, we're happy! Let's shoot!

I had front row seats for U2 once in a Stadium show. Front row, but all the way at the right end of the row. Completely awesome watching the band that close, but with a giant array of 60K-seat-stadium-filling speakers directly in front of my seat, and me constantly looking left, I lost the hearing in my right ear for about a week. It came back, so give it time, and enjoy the semi-peace and quiet.

If you hang out here very often (and you should) you'll soon come to realize that I'm by far the smartest person here as well as the local IT expert. I'm very well respected and everyone likes me, especially e0y2e3 (who is a bit of a douche, but I don't tell him that so he won't yell at me.)

Peeker is bald and a guy named CDT will come around and make very little sense. However, if he's been drinking he immediately becomes the best poster in the history of the interwebs.

He has pet tarantulas.

FUDU is also bald but for some reason no one seems to make it an issue like they do with Peeker, who again, is extremely bald.

Fire Marshall Bill is a real guy. It's true. I've met him.

There is a wide assortment of colorful characters here, the least of which is SoulDawg.

Welcome aboard.

Rejaculate is a fantastic word.

Thanks for the navigation help. Being you were the first to reply, I'll assume all of this is 100% true.

CDT has tarantulas? Cool. I had a tarantula in college. I thought it died, when it was only molting, and played lacrosse with it's corpse (which made it actually dead). I'm like the Casey Anthony of small pets. I fear for my children at times - thankfully they don't molt.

e0y2e3 wrote:Feh, you have a Yahoo email, 1998 called and asked for you back.

While 1998 was on the line, did it ask for the "This year called and they want their X back" joke? Because it should have.

And you should have picked up the call waiting. That was 2009 when Yahoo started transitioning to more of a rich content provider instead of the social media interconnect Google tries to be. Yahoo has some excellent writers, not the least of which is Charles Robinson, who singlehandedly brought down USC, Ohio State, and Miami with his reporting. And they have a video segment where Fabio Viviani does a weekly cooking segment - who can't get enough of that crazy fuck? Yahoo has done a fantastic job of creating micro-sites within it to cater to various demographics as well, even altering the look and feel. They could have been crushed by Google - and almost were - but the way they reinvented themselves is a good case study in business evolution and survival.

Having my mail there just makes email part of their overall content delivery portal.

Cerebral_DownTime wrote:I could have done without the gunfire. I'm now deaf in my left ear.

I never understood the need to celebrate things by firing guns. Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy going to the range and discharging clips full of ammunition as a healthy outlet for rage, and to prepare for the inevitable collapse of society, you know, just in case. But hey, we're happy! Let's shoot!

I had front row seats for U2 once in a Stadium show. Front row, but all the way at the right end of the row. Completely awesome watching the band that close, but with a giant array of 60K-seat-stadium-filling speakers directly in front of my seat, and me constantly looking left, I lost the hearing in my right ear for about a week. It came back, so give it time, and enjoy the semi-peace and quiet.

I had front row seats for U2 once in a Stadium show. Front row, but all the way at the right end of the row. Completely awesome watching the band that close, but with a giant array of 60K-seat-stadium-filling speakers directly in front of my seat, and me constantly looking left, I lost the hearing in my right ear for about a week. It came back, so give it time, and enjoy the semi-peace and quiet.

Wasn't this the tour that MacPhisto was the Edge's guitar tech?

Looking foward to reading more Out of Bounds

Galley Boys are slop on top of a so-so burger and a bun you coulde get from a Covneninet food mart generic pack. They the Antoine Joubert of burgers; soft, sloppy, oozing grease and cheap sauce and extremely overrated by a biased fan base. Proof that if you throw enough cheap sauce shit on a burger you still can't overcome the lame burger. -JB

That is untrue. My kid likes me, I think. He's only 3 so you might say it doesn't count because he doesn't know a lot of people yet. But I'm counting it. I'm probably his 7th or 8th favorite person. Definitely top 10.

Fire Marshall Bill wrote:BTW....mother is the smartest guy here....he gets curb service to tailgates from his wife....

Dude, that is just so he doesn't get beat up or shanked on the walk over. She needs him around to babysit and take care of the family cavities, can't have him getting jumped because she let him outside with no one to watch him.

I had front row seats for U2 once in a Stadium show. Front row, but all the way at the right end of the row. Completely awesome watching the band that close, but with a giant array of 60K-seat-stadium-filling speakers directly in front of my seat, and me constantly looking left, I lost the hearing in my right ear for about a week. It came back, so give it time, and enjoy the semi-peace and quiet.

Wasn't this the tour that MacPhisto was the Edge's guitar tech?

Looking foward to reading more Out of Bounds

MacPhisto, that is a name I haven't thought of in a while.

Coming from a Wolverine, we're the football equivalent of a formerly abused wife of a meth addict who just remarried the safe nice guy. We're just glad we have someone who's aware that it's a rivalry and that tackling on defense is integral. Baby steps.

Cool, you may have seen my work the same place Swerb has. I'm happy to be writing for a Cleveland-based site on the side to be sure.

Love child of shawn kemp wrote:I still have an AOL email account so I think you are really hip. And, I went to high school with the daughter of that dude in your avatar...seriously.

That is pretty awesome. I love coincidences like that. Question - was she as pug pfugly as dad? Better question, which may be related to the above: you hit that?

Larvell Blanks wrote:Wasn't this the tour that MacPhisto was the Edge's guitar tech?

Damn, that's a good memory. And you nailed the tour. 1993. Great show. Here's something I remember from the show. Some asshole jumps on stage just to touch Bono. He gives him a hug, and is walking off to get arrested. Bono walks behind the dude, taps him on the shoulder, and lets him open New Years Day with him. Total pimp move by Bono. Yeah, that was worth a night in jail to be sure.

Someday I want to be that awesome. Eh, who am I kidding, I'd sucker punch the douche and let my roadies finish him off.

FUDU wrote:Are you any relation to David Thorne?

I'm 100% less Australian. Which saddens me.

jb wrote:Lar I have a question.

How could Bridget Love Bernie if she was into lesbionics?

That's a great question. I guess it depends on what you interpret "love" to be.

I think "love" is the ability to find someone that fills a deep need within your soul. But quite often, people really don't know who they are, and what they want in life. So they fall in love with someone who fills the current need in their life, and then fall out of love when they understand that said person doesn't really match their real wants and needs.

This has to be especially tough when your wants and needs are eschewed by your peers. You can fall in love for all the wrong reasons - societal pressure, familial pressure, too many margaritas, etc. Each of which will allow you to sell yourself on the fact that you're in love, but deep inside, your love will ultimately fail when it doesn't truly nurture your soul. This is especially true of lesbians in the early 70s.

To this end, you should never marry your high school sweetheart. Basically that person is just someone with complimentary genitals that happens to have a family in a similar socioeconomic situation which has allowed you to find her and fingerbang her in the metroparks. But when she comes visiting you in college, she is going to fuck your best friend, because she's a whore. Which is just as well, because you have no idea who you are in life, nor what you want out of life, until you turn 30. And believe you me, that skank isn't your life partner.

So Bridget loved Bernie, because he was right for her in her youth and because society pushed her into his arms. And she really believed she loved him. But she realized that men are stinky, hairy, farty, horny, narcissistic bastards, and craved the gentle touch of a woman to complete her. I can't really blame her for that.

The games are actually pretty good, it is just the energy around them that sucks. People are sick of the BCS, angry at the system, and don't want to watch what they consider meaningless games.

I actually addressed this a bit in my first column. So I won't rejaculate my own work here.

You also have to consider that Ohio State isn't in a BCS bowl for the first time since the earth was believed to be otherwise to round. That makes it a downer for northeast Ohio.

But if we get over ourselves, we can see there's been some remarkable football. Baylor-Washington was as fun of a college football game as I've seen in a long time. And then Wisky-Oregon tried to match that energy, and SERIOUSLY DUDE THERE ARE TWO SECONDS ON THE CLOCK YOU CANNOT DOWN THE BALL. That game could have gone to 9 OTs if not for the stupidity. Michigan-Tech went to OT (which made up for a lackluster game). Stanford... you can't tell me you didn't enjoy the poetry of watching Luck play. It was the best bowl game by a QB I've seen since Rapistberger in the 2003 GMAC Bowl. Seriously, find game footage of that bowl. He made every throw with touch, you knew he was going to be awesome and the fucking Clowns passed on drafting him. Other great games include MSU-UGA, Toledo-Air Force, and O freakin U won a bowl game. That alone makes this season awesome.

People tend to project their perceived deficiencies on others in an attempt to cover up their own internal wounds. Car manufacturers do a great job of this. Whatever their weak point is, they sell it as a strength. "At Ford, Quality is Job 1". Right, 1990s Found-On-Road-Dead, that's all you cared about. They turned around their company to actually make quality vehicles, and they don't advertise that tripe anymore, because people know. Coors Light sells their beer as being really fucking cold, which hides the fact that it tastes like a dog's bathwater. The thought is that you think "Coors Light is cold. Miller Lite can't possibly be cold. I'll buy me some Coors Light and ignore the fact they ignore the non-existent yet putrid taste in their marketing.

All I'm saying, dude, is that you may want to take a look inside yourself so you don't wind up unhappy like Merideth Baxter was. Not judging, just trying to help.

I'm not a jerk. That is just fucking rude and totally uncalled for. I've been nothing but nice and polite to every fucko here. I've never even said one bad thing about any of you, and this is how you treat me.

How come whenever there is a thread on this site listed as "Announcement", the go to first new post button doesn't work, yet it continues to turn orange like it does? And what do you think it says about a person who is actually bothered by having to hold down a button for 2 seconds to get to the bottom of a thread to avoid rejaculating posts he already jaculated?

motherscratcher wrote:Peeker is bald and a guy named CDT will come around and make very little sense. However, if he's been drinking he immediately becomes the best poster in the history of the interwebs.

He has pet tarantulas.

FUDU is also bald but for some reason no one seems to make it an issue like they do with Peeker, who again, is extremely bald.

There's bald and then there's cool bald, IOW we all feel sorry for Peeker.

<-------- breeds Tarantula Hawks.

Criminals in this town used to believe in things...honor, respect."I heard your dog is sick, so bought you this shovel"

Fire Marshall Bill wrote:Lars, did you know that CDT is 13' tall and says the Germans invented pizza by putting fish innards on stale bread?

Rhetorical question - if there was indeed a 13 foot tall dude, would it be at all fair to allow him to compete in professional sports? In the NBA, just post him down low and let him drop the ball into the basket from 3 feet above it. In the NFL, make him a WR, and throw the ball way up there where he couldn't be defended. Granted, he'd be as slow and ugly as Gheorge Muresan, but at 13 feet tall, would it really matter? How would a rule committee disallow this freak show from making a total mockery of the sport? And where would you draw the line?

pup wrote:Hey Lars,

How come whenever there is a thread on this site listed as "Announcement", the go to first new post button doesn't work, yet it continues to turn orange like it does? And what do you think it says about a person who is actually bothered by having to hold down a button for 2 seconds to get to the bottom of a thread to avoid rejaculating posts he already jaculated?

Fuck if I know. Ask the dude in this thread that claims to be the IT expert. I'd scroll up and get his name, but I don't want to waste 2 seconds to do such.

As for a dude that doesn't want to inconvenience himself for 2 seconds, I'd say he's a pretty typical American in the digital age. It's what we've become. I'm comfortable knowing I'm that guy. It is an unreasonable amount of petulant whining for a completely inconsequential problem that seems like Atlas' burden to those conditioned to getting what we want when we want instantaneously? Probably. But that's where we are. I'll see what I can do to get that fixed*.

* note: this is a trademarked way I tell people to "shut the fuck up". Basically, by saying such, I say "yeah, I'm going to help you." And then I go get a frogurt or do some other task not involving your whining. If you ask me in a couple of days what happened when I tried to solve your problem, I say something like "I tried, but they wouldn't do it" and then bitch about the man sticking it to us. We become closer, aligned against our oppressor, and I really have done nothing of use to you. But you don't know that. You think I'm your Ralph fucking Nader.

Orenthal wrote:Lars do you know why e0 is so angry?

He doesn't seem like a bad guy to me. Maybe you just haven't found common ground, and maybe you haven't worked hard enough to improve your relationship. I mean, yeah, he could be a jerk, or lonely, or repressed, or have mental issues, but it is also possible he's smarter than you all and gets tired by your banal and naive takes.

My suggestion is that you try to find something on which you agree, and build off that. Or go get ridiculously hammered together. And if that fails, meet each other in the Muni lot, do some shots, and then beat the living shit out of each other. Sometimes a good bloodbath is the only way to heal wounds.

Erie Warrior wrote:Lars, what is your most favorite part of an emu?

The tenderloin. Lean as chicken breast, but flavorful like red meat. Cook it rare to medium rare, and you have a nice healthy steak. Maybe top it with some sauteed porcini mushrooms in a port wine reduction.